posted at 4:41 pm on July 31, 2014 by Noah Rothman

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg evolved this summer from a mere figure of authority into a liberal celebrity when she authored the dissenting opinion in the Hobby Lobby case. Ginsburg’s dissent, which has been ubiquitously dubbed “scathing” and/or “blistering” in the press, prompted the left to craft a cult of personality around her.

All this hero worship was entirely unearned, but the left is eternally in search of a totem. Ginsburg revealed just how misplaced the deluge of liberal idolization was on Thursday when she let all that celebrity go to her head.

In an interview with Katie Couric, Ginsburg embraced the toxic, disrespectful, and illiberal identity politics that has so intoxicated the left when she said that the five male Justices who decided Hobby Lobby really cannot understand the law in this case because they do not possess her reproductive organs.

Ginsburg began by insisting that the decision in Hobby Lobby meant that “women would have to take care of that for themselves, or the men who cared.” Oh, the tyrannies of free will and independence.

“Contraceptive coverage is something that every woman must have access to to control her own destiny,” she added. It sure is a good thing that the decision did not limit anyone’s access to contraceptives, as evidenced by what Ginsburg had just said two seconds prior.

“All three women justices were in the minority in the Hobby Lobby decision,” Couric noted, without making mention of the fact that those women represent three of the Court’s four reliably liberal justices. “Do you believe that the five male justices truly understood the ramifications of their decision?”

“I would have to say no,” Ginsburg replied. “I’m ever hopeful that if the Court has a blind spot today, its eyes can be opened tomorrow.”

One would have to presume by Couric’s question and Ginsburg’s subsequent answer that Justice Stephen Breyer possesses an unrivaled clarity of thought and godlike powers of empathy for the female condition.

“But you do in fact feel that these five justices have a bit of a blind spot?” Couric clarified.

“In Hobby Lobby? Yes,” Ginsburg replied.

She added that this same blind spot was evident in the Court’s 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. One has to imagine that she is suggesting here that the Court should have abandoned impartiality and issued a ruling based on emotion.

In that case, Justice Samuel Alito opined that “current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination.” Not that there had been no discrimination. In fact, the Court ruled in favor of the law at the time, which led the Congress to craft and pass a new law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, addressing the Court’s concerns.

You know? The legislative processes defined in the Constitution? Talk about a “blind spot.”

Ginsburg spent the remainder of her interview with Couric basking in the admiration of the online left and her new “notorious” status — a moniker perhaps never so well-deserved.

This was a truly insulting display of contempt for Ginsburg’s male colleagues. Her implication that their majority’s decision in Hobby Lobby, a gracious interpretation of which would lead any civil individual to concede was based on the merits of the case, is the height of condescension.

Were the roles reversed, and it was a male justice in the majority who had suggested that his female counterparts dissented in this case because they were blinded by self-interest and the peculiarities of their gender, the left would demand that justice be impeached.

That would, of course, be an absurd overreaction, but the left would at least have a case to make; the justice in that hypothetical case would be expressing desire if not an intention to betrayal of the oath of office. Ginsburg swore solemnly to “administer justice without respect to persons.” In this moment, she signaled her willingness to violate that pledge.

Arguing for what are essentially separate but equal systems of justice based on circumstances of birth is not a liberal notion. It is poisonous, and Ginsburg should be ashamed of herself for promoting it.

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By that measure, Only soldiers can understand war, so anyone that never served can’t have an opinion.
Even better:
Only those that pay taxes should have a say about tax policy…
The list can go on and on…

She needs to retire. Can’t even bother to keep up appearances of making decisions based upon law anymore.

“Contraceptive coverage is something that every woman must have access to to control her own destiny,” she added.

The dishonest use of the word “access” aside, where is having someone else pay for your elective medical services mandated in the Constitution? It’s never even been an issue until the last couple years. I never had any expectation that somebody else would pick up the tab for my sex life, and now it’s a constitutional right?

It’s absurd. These people a truly dangerous. If they can buy into this, nothing is off the table.

I don’t understand why you atre so shocked by Ginsburg’s comments here, or those in her dissent in Hobby Lobby.

It is a longstanding party of the feminist catechism that all forms of birth control should ideally be free for women, otherwise women are not really in control of their bodies in the same way men are. “Access” is a meaningless word if women have to pay for that access. If one woman fails to obtain birth control because she cannot afford it, then that is an affront to all women.

The entire point of Obamacare, and especially of the coverage mandate included in it, was to get universal insurance coverage for all contraceptives with no copays. The individual mandate was essential to get enough men paying in to subsidize “free” birth control for women.

The contraceptive mandate was the Holy Grail for true-believing feminists. Any exception to it is like an assault on a religious doctrine. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nothing if not a true-believing feminist.

The law isn’t about ovaries or testes, it’s about equality before it and the protection of unalienable Rights, both enumerated and un-enumerated – something a Supreme Court Justice should know, and protect.

And she couldn’t understand the Heller and McDonald cases because she doesn’t live in a bad neighborhood where the police might not get there in time and a citizen might need to defend themselves in their own home. :|

I don’t understand why you atre so shocked by Ginsburg’s comments here, or those in her dissent in Hobby Lobby.

It is a longstanding party of the feminist catechism that all forms of birth control should ideally be free for women, otherwise women are not really in control of their bodies in the same way men are. “Access” is a meaningless word if women have to pay for that access. If one woman fails to obtain birth control because she cannot afford it, then that is an affront to all women.

The entire point of Obamacare, and especially of the coverage mandate included in it, was to get universal insurance coverage for all contraceptives with no copays. The individual mandate was essential to get enough men paying in to subsidize “free” birth control for women.

The contraceptive mandate was the Holy Grail for true-believing feminists. Any exception to it is like an assault on a religious doctrine. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg is nothing if not a true-believing feminist.

rockmom on July 31, 2014 at 4:56 PM

On one level you’re right, it’s not shocking.

But on the other hand we now have SCOTUS justices spouting the most crazed and nonsensical sentiments on the shrieking left.

You’d hope that at least someone as educated as Ginsburg would see through at least some of the crap.

Even the government statistics state that 99% of women who wanted birth control could get it. So even if lefties want to apply some asinine definition of “access” they’re still making no sense.

The dishonest use of the word “access” aside, where is having someone else pay for your elective medical services mandated in the Constitution? It’s never even been an issue until the last couple years. I never had any expectation that somebody else would pick up the tab for my sex life, and now it’s a constitutional right?

It’s absurd. These people a truly dangerous. If they can buy into this, nothing is off the table.

forest on July 31, 2014 at 4:54 PM

Oh, it’s been a HUGE issue for feminists for years and years. They just got smart and kept very quiet about it while Obamacare was being passed.

In their view, birth control is NOT an “elective medical service,” it is ESSENTIAL to a woman’s basic right to have and enjoy sex anytime and not to become an incubator of another human unless and until she wants to. They believe this is not somthing women should have to pay for at all; a right that has a price tag is not really a right. They really do believe that all citizens should pay their share of insurance costs so that women have this right unfettered and un-priced.

You don’t have to agree with it, but you should understand it. Free birth control is a fundamental right in the eyes of feminist ideologues.

And she couldn’t understand the Heller and McDonald cases because she doesn’t live in a bad neighborhood where the police might not get there in time and a citizen might need to defend themselves in their own home. :|

You’d hope that at least someone as educated as Ginsburg would see through at least some of the crap.

Even the government statistics state that 99% of women who wanted birth control could get it. So even if lefties want to apply some asinine definition of “access” they’re still making no sense.

gwelf on July 31, 2014 at 5:01 PM

But Ginsburg is a Betty Friedan/Gloria Steinem-era feminist. It isn’t crap to them, it is doctrine. The early feminists fought for the legalization of contraception, then for widespread acceptance of it, and now the final frontier is making it available to all women at no cost. When you are this ideologically — I would say religiously — wedded to an idea, the notion of any exception to it is repugnant.

“I would have to say no,” Ginsburg replied. “I’m ever hopeful that if the Court has a blind spot today, its eyes can be opened tomorrow.”

So…by Noah’s odd reading of ‘blind spot’, Ginsburg is saying that maybe tomorrow there will be no males on the court?

Of course she isn’t saying any such thing.
Is this silly and invented complaint just at HA or is it making the ’rounds on con blogs?

Come on, Noah.
You’re smarter than this.

One would have to presume by Couric’s question and Ginsburg’s subsequent answer that Justice Stephen Breyer possesses an unrivaled clarity of thought and godlike powers of empathy for the female condition.

Well again by your reading, of course she means that Breyer has a vagina.
Now that’s news.
/

Ginsburg began by insisting that the decision in Hobby Lobby meant that “women would have to take care of that for themselves, or the men who cared.” Oh, the tyrannies of free will and independence.

“Contraceptive coverage is something that every woman must have access to to control her own destiny,” she added. It sure is a good thing that the decision did not limit anyone’s access to contraceptives, as evidenced by what Ginsburg had just said two seconds prior.

“All three women justices were in the minority in the Hobby Lobby decision,” Couric noted, without making mention of the fact that those women represent three of the Court’s four reliably liberal justices. “Do you believe that the five male justices truly understood the ramifications of their decision?”

“I would have to say no,” Ginsburg replied. “I’m ever hopeful that if the Court has a blind spot today, its eyes can be opened tomorrow.”

One would have to presume by Couric’s question and Ginsburg’s subsequent answer that Justice Stephen Breyer possesses an unrivaled clarity of thought and godlike powers of empathy for the female condition.

“But you do in fact feel that these five justices have a bit of a blind spot?” Couric clarified.

“In Hobby Lobby? Yes,” Ginsburg replied.

What else do you think Ginsburg is saying? That the five MALES in the court have a blind spot because they are…? And the three FEMALES don’t because…?

Did she have any comment on Holder’s decision to sue the Pa State Police for requiring women applicants to pass the same physical test as men or is that kind of left wing disdain towards women’s equality something she and the rest of the pathetic liberal broads on the Supreme Court will continue to let men impose on women?

I don’t know that he was the “worst” as other people define it, but my vote goes to Earl Warren.

listens2glenn on July 31, 2014 at 4:51 PM

Hands down: Roger B. Taney to me.

In the Dred Scott decision: he constructed an argument from silence to argue that black men were never meant to be US citizens, despite the presence of freeman black landowners in the north, from the Revolution.

He invented “substantive due process” that struck down Illinois’ right to disallow the keeping of other people as property in their state. Both Bork and Renquist consider Taney’s “substantive due process” instrumental in the a lot of the activism in the 20th century. As Bork explained it, before Taney “due process” was whatever was the agreed upon process by which a state makes law. So the Emersons should have known that their claim on Scott would not hold past the Illinois state lines. But Taney’s argument that Congress could not create “free states” out of the territories because that would deprive people of their property (slaves) without a trial.

Note that Taney was a southerner who wanted to end the question of slavery once and for all and combat the “Northern aggression” against slavery.

She asked her point blank if the 5 had a blind spot because they weren’t women. Ginsberg’s answer was mostly a dodge that confirmed it – she said they have wives and daughters, and that daughters can sometimes persuade. She also brought up the Ledbetter case – another one about “women’s rights”.

What is this old hag’s problem? The Hobby Lobby thing was abt not paying for abortion pills. Not birth control pills. Here’s a freaking idea: Keep it the hell in your pants ladies! You’re always complaining abt not being able to keep a man. Not being able to find a good man. Why do men need to be good & faithful when all of you give it away for free? And yes. That’s a blanket statement. I’m not referring to most of the ladies here at HA.

Do you agree with Ginsberg that Hobby Lobby was “foisting” it’s religious beliefs on it’s employees? That it was “transferring” it’s religious beliefs to it’s employees?

Do you agree with Ginsberg that not paying for your employees pill is the same as slapping it out of their hands? Really – did you watch it? She actually uses the libertarian analogy of your rights stop where someone else’s faces begins – and compared Hobby Lobby’s actions of doing what they wanted with their property to hitting someone. You agree with that?

Do you agree with Ginsberg’s analysis that it’s ok for the government to force Hobby Lobby to give things to it’s employees as a condition of being part of society? Really?
Ginsberg is a fascist.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

oh yah. yah lets reduce that to a rightwing talking point. “ladies want to take my money to pay for their slut sex.” no war on women here folks. no sirreebobby.

Before people label Ruthie the worst ever, remember Sotomayor and Kagan are just getting started and if somebody else drops out, Obama still has time to nominate another. Would three used Tampons dress in judicial gowns be too harsh a criticism?

Before people label Ruthie the worst ever, remember Sotomayor and Kagan are just getting started and if somebody else drops out, Obama still has time to nominate another. Would three used Tampons dressed in judicial gowns be too harsh a criticism?

Ginsburg spent the remainder of her interview with Couric basking in the admiration of the online left and her new “notorious” status — a moniker perhaps never so well-deserved.

Well, that Wendy Davis fawning thing has pretty much played itself out, and Sandar Fluke made the mistake of running in an area of California where her likely top opponents were going to be other long-term local liberal Democrats not likely to want to paint her as the champion of progressive sisterhood. So scratch the last two Glorious Heroes of the Crusade for Reproductive Rights, and for the followers, Ruth B is now their latest hero, though at age 80, this is more of a stop-gap hero than anything else (though William O. Douglas made a living out of being hailed by the left in his dotage in the 1960s and early 70s).

“Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

oh yah. yah lets reduce that to a rightwing talking point. “ladies want to take my money to pay for their slut sex.” no war on women here folks. no sirreebobby.

brushingmyhair on July 31, 2014 at 5:30 PM

I suppose the (D) majority Congress and constitutional scholar president should’ve considered that when they wrote and passed the law without any (R) votes.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”
“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”
oh yah. yah lets reduce that to a rightwing talking point. “ladies want to take my money to pay for their slut sex.” no war on women here folks. no sirreebobby.

brushingmyhair on July 31, 2014 at 5:30 PM

Ha ha ha.

So a company telling the government that the government cannot force it to use it’s property amounts to the company establishing a national religion?

oh yah. yah lets reduce that to a rightwing talking point. “ladies want to take my money to pay for their slut sex.” no war on women here folks. no sirreebobby.

brushingmyhair on July 31, 2014 at 5:30 PM

BTW, the absolute best part is when it’s realized that you, brushingmyhair, through your active and direct support of the legislation and the way the law was written and passed entirely by Reid, Pelosi, and the constitutional scholar president, are responsible.

Companies are only following your law, and no one else was responsible for the (obviously) bumbling and incompetent way the law was written.

So again, my sincerest congratulations on your personal role in actively and choosing to limit medication to women. You and your yah yah friends are directly responsible for more women being denied birth control than the combined misogynistic conservatives here.

I’m filing a Supreme Court case where I will assert my right to pursue happiness is being denied by the fact I must pay for my own motorhome. It is a basic right that I should have motorhomes, of my choice, provided to me at no cost.

I don’t think the women on the Supreme Court can understand that. Its a guy thing.

Companies are only following your law, and no one else was responsible for the (obviously) bumbling and incompetent way the law was written.

So again, my sincerest congratulations on your personal role in actively and choosing to limit medication to women. You and your yah yah friends are directly responsible for more women being denied birth control than the combined misogynistic conservatives here.

And that’s absolutely hilarious.

rogerb on July 31, 2014 at 5:57 PM

do you have any clue? at all? you can’t possibly believe that clap trap can you?

But no more of a disgrace than his record on unemployment, which reflects that it has been precisely his own, strongest supporters, particularly blacks, Hispanics, the young, and women, who have suffered the most under Obama’s failed policies.

For President Obama’s entire time in office, 5 years now, blacks have suffered unemployment well into double digits. With “Latino unemployment close behind,” as Obama himself also lamented in his Martin Luther King 50th Anniversary speech last August. Yes, the economy was in recession when President Obama entered office. But under every other President in U.S. history, for well over a century at least, the economy was in a booming recovery within 5 years, even under Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression!

The left’s main argument is that male Justices’ opinions are separate, but equal. Do these people hear themselves when they talk?

Let’s take this argument to it’s absurd, logical conclusion: should it be acknowledged that the women of SCOTUS haven’t had operating reproductive systems for decades, thus had no standing to rule on Hobby Lobby?

Jerry = good guy. Really miss Jerry. Jerry = dear friend. People still get fired in future? Even person with new baby? Hope not. Hope that, in future, all is well, everyone eats free, no one must work, all just sit around feeling love for one another. – Two-Minute Note to the Future by George Saunders

.
Then try to “read between the lines” like you do with every liberal confabulation.

So again, my sincerest congratulations on your personal role in actively and choosing to limit medication to women. You and your yah yah friends are directly responsible for more women being denied birth control than the combined misogynistic conservatives here.

And that’s absolutely hilarious.

rogerb on July 31, 2014 at 5:57 PM

oh yah we wrote it on a plan developed by MITT ROMNEY and outlined by the HERITAGE FOUNDATION is all.